We pitted Edge against Chrome (version 44.0.2403.89m) on an HP Spectre x360 laptop with a 2.2GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM, and ran a series of benchmark tests to see if Microsoft’s new web browser is faster or at least on par with Chrome.

Each web browser was tested as new, meaning Chrome didn’t have any extensions to slow it down and the history and cache were reset on each browser after every trial.

Two important things to note: Chrome does come with Adobe Flash pre-installed. We didn’t disable it during our benchmark tests as that’s the state it would be downloaded in by a normal user.

All tests were performed three times and then the average taken.

Futuremark Peacekeeper

Peacekeeper is a JavaScript benchmark that runs through a number of tests from rendering capabilities, to HTML5, to Document Object Model operations (an API used to create dynamic websites) and text parsing. You can find all of the nerdy details about the tests here.

The higher the Peacekeeper score is, the better overall performance the browser is.

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Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

2563

3917

Trial 2

2551

3915

Trial 3

2461

3920

Average

2525

3917

As you can see in the benchmark scores above, Chrome smokes Edge in speed and overall performance.

Winner: Google Chrome

SunSpider JavaScript

SunSpider is another JavaScript benchmark, but unlike Peackeeper, it only tests JS and none of the other stuff. Developed by Apple’s WebKit team in 2007, it’s a commonly used benchmark to compare web browsers as it takes into account features like encryption. You can learn more about the specifics of SS here.

We used the latest 1.0.2 version and here are the results (lower is better):

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

105.4ms

255.8ms

Trial 2

102.3ms

276.2ms

Trial 3

102.7ms

270.2ms

Average

103.5ms

267.4ms

Image: Mashable/Raymond Wong

In this test, Edge beats Chrome with an average of 103.5ms, showing it’s more equipped to tackle “real performance problems that developers have encountered” (how SunSpider describes its test).

Winner: Microsoft Edge

V8 Benchmark Suite – Version 7

Google developed its own JavaScript benchmark to test JS performance for Chrome (because Internet, presumably). You can find details on the test here.

Generally it favors Chrome, but let’s see how well Edge performs with it. The higher the score, the better.

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

21554

23376

Trial 2

22381

23791

Trial 3

21566

23657

Average

21834

23608

Image: Raymond Wong/Mashable

Once again, Google Chrome comes out on top, but not by much.

Winner: Google Chrome

Real-world speed

The benchmarks above provide a good picture of how web browsers compare with one another, but they’re far from the only metrics that matter. In my non-synthetic “real life-tests,” I loaded Mashable.com, NewYorkTimes.com and Facebook.com, and then timed the two. These were the results:

Mashable.com

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

5.33 seconds

4.56 seconds

Trial 2

5.75 seconds

5.10 seconds

Trial 3

5.31 seconds

4.86 seconds

Average

5.46 seconds

4.84 seconds

NewYorkTimes.com

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

5.85 seconds

5.68 seconds

Trial 2

5.41 seconds

5.40 seconds

Trial 3

5.69 seconds

5.53 seconds

Average

5.65 seconds

5.53 seconds

Facebook.com

Microsoft Edge

Google Chrome

Trial 1

3.23 seconds

3.31 seconds

Trial 2

3.63 seconds

3.22 seconds

Trial 3

3.38 seconds

3.29 seconds

Average

3.41 seconds

3.27 seconds

Google Chrome just barely edges out Microsoft Edge, but you probably won’t notice the difference in real life.

Winner: Google Chrome

Google Chrome is still king, but…

So what did we learn? Well, Google Chrome is faster than Microsoft Edge, but…only if you don’t have any extras like extensions installed. When you add those in, Chrome slows down to a crawl.

Edge is no slouch, though. It’s a very capable browser and after testing it out, I really like it a lot. If Internet Explorer left a bad taste in your mouth, you’ll be happy to hear that Edge is a complete reset in the best way possible.

Extensions are coming to Edge and that could — and almost certainly will — slow its performance down, but right now it’s nothing but a great start for Windows 10.